


Come Back to Me

by Yrindor



Series: Sports Anime Shipping Olympics 2016 Fills [39]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Branding, Demon Kuroo Tetsurou, Domestic Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Prompt Fic, SASO 2016, Serious Injuries, Tattoos, Witch Kozume Kenma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-22 07:29:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7425697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yrindor/pseuds/Yrindor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The rules say that demons will serve any summoner who forces them into a contract and kill any who do not.  Kenma and Kuroo have never played by the rules, but what happens when Kuroo is unexpectedly taken by another witch?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come Back to Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [acgiacoma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/acgiacoma/gifts).



> Written for Sports Anime Shipping Olympics Bonus Round 3. The prompt was:
>
>> **Package:** a small cardboard box  
>  **From:** Kenma  
>  **To:** Kuroo  
>  **Note:** come home soon.
> 
> This also fills the "imprisonment" square for hurt/comfort bingo round 7. 

Everyone knew about the witch who lived in the cabin at the end of the path up the hill. He seemed innocuous enough everyone said. He was small, and shy, and seemed to go out of his way to avoid people. No one would have thought much of him if it weren't for the demon.

Everyone knew demons too. Everyone knew that witches summoned demons, and that they controlled them with elaborate contracts. Everyone knew that no one but the strongest witches would even think of trying to control any demon without a contract.

Everyone knew that Kuroo was anything but a weak demon, and everyone knew that Kenma didn't have a contract with him. No one wanted to think about what that meant for their perceptions of the innocent little witch who sometimes wandered around the village petting the village cats.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Kuroo, have you seen my hellbore?" Kenma called from his workroom.

"You used the last of it yesterday in the salve for the farrier. Do you need more?" Kuroo yelled back from where he was stretched out in the sun on the porch. At first glance, he seemed human enough, until one noticed the pointed ears sticking out through his unruly hair, or the unnaturally sharp teeth that showed when he smiled, or the smoldering fire that seemed to burn in his eyes.

"I'll get it later," Kenma called back. "I don't need it; I'm just experimenting."

Kuroo flinched reflexively, and less than a second later there was a soft pop from the workroom followed by the tinkle of falling glass and quiet swearing from Kenma.

"Kuroo? I think I need the broom."

Kuroo groaned as he pulled himself up out of the sun and dragged himself inside, wondering what the other demons would say if they saw him, one of the great demon kings, willingly acting like a domestic servant. He took the broom from the corner of the kitchen and handed it through the workroom door. As soon as Kenma took it, Kuroo retreated back to the safety of the kitchen. There was far too much latent magic lingering in Kenma's workspace, and it made him sneeze and made his hair stand on end.

"Dittany apparently reacts violently when used in place of hellbore in the slug repellent," Kenma muttered to himself. "I wouldn't have expected that. I wonder what it reacted with? Maybe the antimony?"

Kuroo heard the scratch of chalk on a slate, a sure sign that Kenma was completely engrossed in his research. It didn't take much for that to happen, and when it did, Kenma would forget about everything else until he had solved whatever challenge he had set for himself.

Kuroo had never understood how Kenma picked his challenges; they were usually odd problems such as creating a sleeping draught whose ingredients all began with the letter D ("for dreams," Kenma had said when asked), or seeing how many effective variations of a tincture he could devise without using any of its three main ingredients. So far as Kuroo could tell, the only point of the games was Kenma's own amusement. He couldn't really complain though; after all, it was how they had met.

Kuroo knew he would never forget that moment. It was rare enough for someone to even risk summoning one of the demon kings, and when they did, they normally had no shortage of wards, and magic circles, and unnecessary pomp and circumstance.

So he had been more than a little surprised when he suddenly found himself sitting on the floor of a workroom without a barrier in sight.

"Oh, it worked," the witch sitting on the floor had said, scribbling a note on a piece of paper. Kuroo blinked in confusion at the witch who seemed to have no idea how summonings were supposed to work. Still, rules were rules, and the rules said that when a demon was summoned, it didn't have to obey until the summoner bound it with a contract, and it would be free if it killed the summoner before then.

Kuroo had no intention of being bound, especially not to some underqualified witch in the middle of nowhere. He started shifting into his true demonic form.

"Please don't do that in here," the witch said, throwing out a barrier without looking up from his notes. "I just finished cleaning."

The ward itself was impressive enough, but in the split second before the witch released it to stand on its own, Kuroo could see from it into the core of the witch's power. Into the ley lines that intersected under the floor and drew power from deep under the earth and from every plant and rock for miles.

It was the sort of power that could have easily ruled kingdoms.

Kuroo stayed. He hadn't meant to, but the quiet power that wrapped around the witch was enticing. Just for a little while he told himself, and somehow hours turned to days, days to weeks, weeks to months, and months to years until he could no longer imagine life any other way.

Which was how he found himself cooking dinner for the witch he had at some point started thinking of as _his_ witch when everything fell to pieces. He had just set the pot over the fire when he felt the bone-wrenching pull of a summoning spell. His nails scored deep gouges in the table as he tried to fight it, but it was too strong. He screamed in agony as the spell finally ripped him away completely just as Kenma came running out of his workroom.

Kenma immediately thrust his power into the ground, casting a net out as far as he could reach, but Kuroo was already out of his range. He kept his net in place, adding his own request to it so that anything passing through would carry out word of what he was seeking, and hopefully something would eventually bring him back a reply.

They had known it was a risk for Kuroo to stay without being bound, but those who even attempted to summon a demon king were rare, and those who succeeded were rarer still, and Kenma had wanted Kuroo to stay by choice, not by force.

They had known the risks, but they had never actually expected them to occur.

That night, Kenma set a small box out on the porch. Inside were some of his hairs and some of Kuroo's, and he poured his memories of the times they would sit together running their fingers through each other's hair into them until the box radiated power like a lantern to give Kuroo something to come home to.

Kuroo didn't come home that night, but the next day Kenma added a rock they had picked up their first walk together to the box, and he added his memories of that as well.

Kuroo didn't come back the second night either, or any of the nights that followed, but every day Kenma continued to add to the box — a stick of Kuroo's favorite incense, an eagle feather Kuroo had found for him, any little trinket that symbolized the bond between them. And into all of them he poured his memories and his feelings until the box shone like a signal fire to anyone with even the weakest magical sense.

Three months later, as Kenma was banking the fire for the night, he felt a familiar presence appear, but it was too weak and ragged and sick to truly be comforting.

"Kuroo?" he asked cautiously as he opened the door, and then stumbled backwards as the demon half-collapsed on top of him.

"I found you," Kuroo said weakly, his breath rattling in his chest. He was too thin, his ribs standing out in stark relief behind the patchwork of bruises that covered his skin. His wrists were rubbed raw, and his back was scored by whip marks in various states of healing. He limped heavily as Kenma helped him inside, one foot bent at an unnatural angle.

He didn't even complain when Kenma led him directly into the workroom and helped him lie down on the long table.

Kenma built the fire back up, then hurried around pulling various jars off of shelves as he waited for water to boil.

When he had everything he needed, he returned to Kuroo's side. "Kuroo," he said, running his fingers through familiar black hair until the demon looked up at him with eyes glassy with fever, "your injuries need tending. This will help with the pain," he said as he held a cup to Kuroo's lips, "but it will probably put you under in the condition you're in now."

Kuroo shook his head violently, trying to scramble backwards but being stopped by a body that had reached its limit.

"I didn't think you'd want that," Kenma said sadly as he set the cup on the edge of the table. "I won't force you, but know it's there if you change your mind."

He dragged a stool over from the corner of the room and sat down at Kuroo's side. "Try not to fight too much," he warned as he soaked a fresh cloth in the steaming water and began the long process of putting the demon back together.

Kuroo cried out under him, his nails tearing long splinters from the table as Kenma cleaned out the raw wounds on his back, stitched those that were too large to leave alone, and covered them all in healing salve.

"Kenma," Kuroo finally rasped sometime before dawn.

"What?" Kenma replied, looking up from his work.

"I don't want to leave. Make me yours so that no one can take me again."

"Are you sure?" Kenma asked softly, and Kuroo nodded. "Please."

Kenma stood and rummage through a box along the wall, coming back with a thick strip of black cloth. He poured his power into it, weaving the ends together until it formed an unbroken band around Kuroo's throat.

"Thank you," Kuroo murmured, and with the comforting presence of Kenma's power pulsing over his neck, he finally fell into an uneasy sleep.

As the sun rose, Kenma wrapped the last of the bandages around Kuroo's wrists. Then he took Kuroo's head in his hands and began to chant, weaving power into his words.

He called on the power of the fire that ran below the earth's surface to burn the infection from Kuroo's lungs. Called on the power of the water that ran in the rivers to wash the poison from Kuroo's blood. Called on the power of the plants around him to grow new flesh to knit together that which had been torn. Down in the village, even those with no magical sense to speak of could feel the power echoing through their bones, and they all looked up at the cottage at the end of the path and wondered what other secrets their shy neighbor held.

Kenma chanted for three days, and on the morning of the third day, Kuroo finally opened his eyes.

"You made it," Kenma said shakily before falling into an exhausted sleep of his own.

Despite the comforting presence of Kenma's collar around his neck, Kuroo was still plagued by nightmares of his months spent bound to another master. He spoke little of those days, but the state he had returned in told Kenma enough.

Over breakfast after one such sleepless night, Kuroo set a bottle of ink and a needle on the table. "Collars can be cut," was all he said, but Kenma could fill in the rest.

Later that morning, Kuroo lay on the workroom table as Kenma poured his power into the ink and tattooed his own sigil over Kuroo's heart. It pulsed in time with Kuroo's heartbeat, and Kuroo slept through the night for the first time since his return.

A month later, Kenma traced the healed sigil on Kuroo's chest, feeling the familiar pulse of his power. "I'll always be able to find you now," he said, "but what if you need to find me?"

"I can feel you through these," Kuroo said as he placed his hands over his throat and his heart.

"What if I'm bound or warded as you once were?" Kenma asked. He took off his robes and lay down on the bed, and Kuroo's breath hitched as he realized what Kenma was asking.

"Are you sure?" he said. It was rare enough for a demon to willingly be bound to a witch. For the opposite to happen was unheard of.

"I don't want to leave either," Kenma said, resting his head on his arm.

He hissed as the first cold touch of demon fire seared into his shoulder, but Kuroo's hand held him still. The icy touch burned back and forth across his shoulderblade until Kuroo's own crest was frozen a stark white against Kenma's pale skin.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

No one had understood how Kenma could live with a demon with no contract between them. They understood even less when they learned there was a contract that went both ways. 

**Author's Note:**

> As always, comments and feedback are welcome and appreciated.


End file.
